In the heartland of our country where row crops are commonly grown, field conditions can vary widely during the growing season. For example, in the early part of the growing season, it is often very wet and soggy. Conversely, in later parts of the growing season, it is often very arid and dry. Most ideal crop yields come when there is a controlled amount of water meeting the demands of the growing crops at any given time. The constant exposure to too much water, followed by too little water, will actually cause significant deterioration of crops. In some instances, such changes in moisture level will cause not only reduced yields, but total crop failure.
One of the common occurring problems with high moisture level in the spring is that it promotes shallow root development. Shallow root development is, of course, undesirable because such does not encourage maximum moisture uptake during the more arid times of the year and it also discourages nutrient uptake with the result being reduced crop yields.
There are, of course, irrigation systems which are available for use during the more arid times of the year. But the commonly used systems merely involve surface application of moisture. The center pivot irrigation systems are typical examples. These are inefficient because of the tremendous loss of water via evaporation. They also do little to encourage deep rooting, which is desirable. In fact, they discourage deep rooting. The systems are also very expensive.
Another problem with conventional field systems involves applications of chemicals, fertilizer nutrients, herbicides, etc. These are all applied at the surface. The surface application of these, just as surplus application of irrigating water, is inefficient for numerous reasons. Amongst those is that surface application does not place the applied treatment chemicals where they are needed, namely, below the soil for the greatest effect. Also, surface application means many passes over the field with tractors and the like, which is very time consuming and expensive because of the fuel consumed.
This invention has as its primary objective, the development of a field crop treatment system which can be operated in a variety of modes, completely changing the mode of operation depending upon the field moisture conditions.
Another objective of the present invention is to develop a system which can be operated in an irrigation mode and/or a water drainage mode.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a field treatment system which allows application of both irrigating water and treating chemicals under the ground to allow maximum effect upon the plant to enhance its nutrition, root development and water uptake.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a field crop treatment system which can literally be tailored to all conditions for spoon feeding of the crop during the growing year.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a crop field treatment system which itself is fairly inexpensive and highly cost effective, and which eliminates the need for tractors making multiple field passes during the early spring.
An even further objective is to allow application of nutrients, such as fertilizer, anhydrous, etc. to field crops in a system balanced with the available field water system to allow the chemicals to recirculate in a loop system for the greatest efficiency.
Yet another objective of the present invention is to provide an irrigation system which irrigates under the ground and avoids the evaporation losses of above ground irrigation.
The method and manner of accomplishing each of these objectives as well as others, will become apparent from the detailed description which follows hereinafter.